Tag: BUY

Dominos

Dominos leapt after a smashing set of results and it seemed rude to not take a 50%+ profit after just 6 months. I just think it’s got a bit ahead of itself now and hopefully it might sink back later in the year to buy back in again.

Sell price: @ £4.02
Buy price: £2.62
Dividend income: 2.5%

Gain: 55.5% total (2.5% + 53%) 130% pa (not compounded)

With the Dominos money burning a hole in my pocket I’ve been playing with the Stock Screening tool on Stockopedia. I’m looking for companies within 20% of their 52 week low, with a reasonable PER and PEG. Minimum size £20M although in practise I’m more comfortable with the £50M + Organisations. I also filtered out certain sectors as they are not for me. Pure exploration and Biotech for instance.

This threw up a list of about 120 and I trawled through the figures this weekend. This narrowed it down to a shortlist of about 40, which I then ranked, then had enough cash to purchase three of the top ones. Plenty more to purchase, just no cash to do so… ones that didn’t make the cut, for instance, include the Banks Barclays and tarnished NatWest.

Brickability

Brickability Group PLC is a United Kingdom-based construction materials distributor. The Company supplies facing bricks, blocks, rainscreen cladding systems, architectural masonry, paving, roof tiles and slates to the construction industry (Stockopedia)

Does what it says on the tin. Makes bricks. Income has grown rapidly in its 3 years of trading from £11m to £600m with profits of about 5-10%. Positive trading update and cost pressures are abating. Taken a modest stake as it’s a smaller than my normal size Organisation.

Buy @ 54.47p with a Dividend yield of 6% and PER of 5.4
Portfolio %: 2.2%
Total Portfolio Holdings: 2.2%

VP Group

Vp plc is a United Kingdom-based equipment rental specialist company. The Company provides specialist products and services to a diverse range of end markets, including infrastructure, construction, housebuilding, and energy (Stockopedia)

More steadily rising turnover and profit, but positive noises from the Management team. Brisk are not yet going out of fashion, especially with the drive for more affordable housing, whatever the colour of the Government over the next 5 years.

Buy @ £5.79 with a Dividend yield of 6.5% and a PER of 7
Portfolio %: 2.8%
Total Portfolio Holdings: 2.8%

Epwin Group

Epwin Group Plc is a manufacturer and supplier of energy efficient and low-maintenance building products, including windows, doors, and fascia systems. (Stockopedia)

Energy efficient”, “low maintenance”. Nice.

Trading Update end July:

Trading ahead of a strong 2022 comparative; confident of achieving full year expectations

and

Trading during the first half of 2023 was in line with the Board’s expectations. Revenues increased to approximately £180 million, with the Group continuing to trade ahead of a strong 2022 comparative.

Buy @ 72.3p with a Dividend yield of 6.2% and a PER of 7.3
Portfolio %: 2.2%
Total Portfolio Holdings: 2.2%

888 Reports next week (15th). It’s bounced back strongly and quickly since the sell-off after I sold, so it will be interesting to see whet the effects of interest rate rises have had on both its costs and the ability of its customers to place bets. I’m still cautious and, so far, it’s about 10% below my selling price.

I’ll update the Portfolio later this month.

CEY (Centamin – Sell) / 888 (888 Holdings – Buy)

May 15, 2023

Charlie Croker

Portfolio No Comments

OK, so after musing over the weekend I’ve swapped my Centamin Holdings for more 888.

Centamin just trundles on. I don’t think it’s ever going to make vast profits – a lot of it is given away as parts of its Joint Ventures with (say) the Egyptian Government. Reviewing figures it seems to be moderate feast and moderate famine, a lot depending on the Gold price.

Nothing fundamentally wrong with the Business but I’m happy to trade the cycles, so if it drops to double digits I’ll revisit it. I’m happy to sell at a 10% profit over 2 months.

Sell price: £1.0981

Buy price: 99.25p

Dividend income: 0

Gain: 10% total (0% + 10%) 60% pa (linear, not compounded)

As promised, I’ve topped up my 888 Holdings at 82.3p to a shade under 8% of the whole portfolio. That will do for now.

Imperial Brands (IMB – Buy)

March 20, 2023

Charlie Croker

Portfolio No Comments

Back into this for similar reasons as my recent BATS purchase. It’s currently yielding 7.4% so a nice steady earner. It’s also even smaller than BATS – Philip Morris is 8x the size so arguably even more ripe for a takeover.

Buy price: £18.83

Dividend yield: 7.4%

Portfolio %: 2.7%

Total Portfolio holdings: 2.7%

IG Group (IGG – BUY)

March 20, 2023

Charlie Croker

Portfolio No Comments

IG Group is a Business that facilitates the buying and selling of shares and other financial instruments by private investors (PIs). PIs cannot buy and sell directly, they have to go through a Regulated Broker (such as IGG).

It started off as a spread bet firm. Here investors don’t buy the underlying shares, but just bet whether they are going to go up or down.

The two main advantages of spread betting are firstly that it is classed as gambling, so there is no tax for PIs to pay on profits (you can’t reclaim taxes on losses either, obviously – and it’s estimated that 80% of private investors lose money. I’ve got better over the years, but early doors I can attest to that).

The second advantage is that you don’t have to pay all the money. If you buy (say) £10,000 of shares you have to spend £10,000 plus costs. If you are betting on £10,000 of shares you only have to put down (say) 20%, so £2,000. That way you can bet on more share value than you have in cash. This is known as gearing (or leverage in the US). If the price movement goes against you, you have to add to this cash to protect IG (or its equivalent).

A similar concept is when buying a house. If you want to buy a £500,000 house you have to spend £500,000. If you don’t have that you might put up £100,000 and borrow £400,000. If the house price rose 10% to £550,000, your £100,000 is worth £150,000 (on paper at least) – a 50% gain. On the other hand, if it dropped by 10% it is only worth £450,000 – your £100,000 is only worth half what it was. This could even be wiped out – in the 1980’s housing crash a lot of people bought overpriced (at the time) properties with high value mortgages, only to find the house worth less than the mortgage (negative equity) when house prices plummeted.

IGG won’t let that happen. They make you top up their investment to cover themselves. If that is not possible they ‘close your position’, realising any losses before you run out of buffer cash (you are still liable for any losses if they don’t close in time). This is why PIs lose money as they overextend themselves and don’t have the resources when they need to top up, and close out at a loss instead. Rinse and repeat.

Anyway, IGG takes a cut whether PIs bet on an increase or a decrease, so make a profit whatever the price is doing *. It’s a numbers game. The margins are small, so lots of investors trading more = more profit. Market volatility is good, and we certainly have that at the moment. I’ve bought some for the portfolio.

* If you have watched “Trading Places” this is exactly how Duke and Duke (IG Group equivalent) make all their money, then lose it when a massive bet (based on false insider information) goes horribly wrong. If they had stuck to taking a commission they would have been fine. Towards the beginning of the film Eddie Murphy’s character gets a schooling on how Brokers make their money.

Buy price: £6.64

Dividend Yield: 7%

British American Tobacco (BATS – Buy)

March 16, 2023

Charlie Croker

Portfolio No Comments

One of the sinful Companies (Tobacco, gambling, Oil etc.). I’ve held Imperial Brands in the past.

BATS latest financial report was slightly gloomy and this has hit the shares a bit, however although tobacco is on the decline, there are plenty of smokers out there and all manufacturers are developing vaping products. The jury is out on whether or not these are harmful.

In the meantime, the cigarettes are being churned out in a highly efficient manner. With a sustainable Dividend yield of 8% this will be a nice steady earner.

Philip Morris, the largest cigarette manufacturer in the world is just under twice as big. A takeover / merger is not entirely out of the question, too.

Buy price: £30.08

Current yield: 8%